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If you’ve been paying attention to food trends over the past few years, you’ve probably heard the term “better burger” thrown around. Starting (at least it seems) with Five Guys, there has been a race to see who can improve on that mainstay of fast food in America: the cheeseburger. But, if you’ve ever eaten at Swenson’s a group of seven drive-in restaurants in northeast Ohio, you’d be forgiven if you’re left scratching your head wondering what there is to improve, and why anyone would think that they could make a so-called “better burger.”

And now! The thrilling conclusion to our Pittsburgh weekend extravaganza! (For those of you following along at home here are Day One and Day Two.)

After the whirlwind of a day we had on Saturday, Tania and I knew that there was no way we’d be able to top that day’s list of activities. Among other things, we didn’t have nearly the same amount of time to spend in the city—we did after all have to go home. (And, I’m pretty sure that while Visit Pittsburgh was happy to pay for a couple of nights in the Renaissance, they weren’t going to pay for us to stay indefinitely.)

Just because we were short on time didn’t mean that we weren’t going to squeeze the most out of our last hours in Pittsburgh though. We had big things planned!

Like this:

You know what happens when you move and plan a wedding all at the same time? Things go by the wayside—like blog posts about visiting new and exciting cities. Apologies to all the places we visited on days two and three of our Pittsburg trip. We didn’t like you less than the places we visited on day one. It’s just that Tania and I have lately spent a lot of mental energy on figuring out how to get our big couch out of the garage and through the front door. (Something we didn’t manage to do on moving day.)

Tania and I just got back from a whirlwind of a trip to San Diego. The main purpose of our visit to California was a wedding of some close friends. (I was in the wedding, ostensibly because the groom and I grew up next door to one another. But it may also be that I just happen to look damn good in a tux.) As would be expected of someone who cares enough about food to write about it on the internet, we did our best to eat our way through San Diego as well.

We ate incredibly well at the wedding itself. The rehearsal lunch was fantastic, and dinner at the wedding reception exceeded all my expectations for wedding food. As good as those meals were, it’s the many other meals that will be the subject of this blog.

Rather than a chronological listing, I’m going to recount our trip by category. Looking over those meals, with one notable exception, they appear to break break down into three main classes: breakfast, fish, and drinking. Because this is a long post, here’s a quick list that will jump you right to each place we went:

A few years ago, word began to spread of a new pizza place in town. Located somewhere along the rather nondescript 161 corridor, it was said that this pizza transcended its unassuming surroundings. Those in the know, well-versed in Columbus’s other pizza offerings, said that this pizza was special; that it stood out. Eventually, the trickle became a flood, and it became accepted as common wisdom among a certain set that Borgata Pizza Café made some of the best pizza in town.

I don’t know what too me so long to try this pizza! It tastes as great as it looks.

Despite all that, despite the recommendations from numerous reliable sources, it took me years to finally make the trip myself. Every time I thought about getting pizza, my thought was “Oh, that’s too far away. Let’s just go to [closer pizza shop]. I mean, can the pizza really be that good?” You know how, as you get older and wiser, you look back and think “If only I could go back in time and tell my younger self what I know now”? That’s how I feel about my pre-Borgata self.

Like this:

As is obvious from this blog, I love food. And although a majority of the recent posts have involved my own kitchen exploits, you’d be wrong if you thought that meant I confined my eating to the products of my own kitchen. Indeed, I go out of my way to sample and regularly patronize area restaurants. In fact, I fancy myself pretty well-versed in area restaurants.

That doesn’t mean however that I’ve been to even restaurant in town. I’ve not even been to all the places that are consensus favorites—even if they’ve been on my “must try” list for years. Two such restaurants are Borgata Pizza Cafe and Nazareth Restaurant and Deli. Both of these restaurants have garnered their fair share of accolades. (See Borgata Pizza here, here, and here. And Nazareth here, here and here.)